


Next Gen

by sahiya



Series: Irondad Bingo 2019 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, Domestic Avengers, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Happy World Pride Day!, Irondad Bingo 2019, No Angst, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 22:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19412422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: There were fewer people than usual hanging around outside Midtown when he pulled up. Tony spotted Peter right away, sitting on the steps with Ned and MJ. Peter didn’t notice him.If he had, Tony wondered later, would he have leaned over and kissed Ned when he did?





	Next Gen

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the "coming out" square on my Irondad BINGO card. It was supposed to be 1500 words, max. *facepalm* I HAVE THINGS TO SAY OKAY. I AM NOT CONCISE. 
> 
> Happy World Pride Day from this ace lesbian! 
> 
> I am right in between Tony and Peter, generationally speaking, which means I might offend both Gen X'ers and Gen Z'ers with this, making me 100% on brand for a Millennial.

The last day of Peter’s junior year, Tony decided to pick him up himself instead of sending Happy. He took the Aston Martin, thinking it was a really nice day for a drive, especially since that the kid wouldn’t have any homework to do. He had permission from May to take him up to the compound for the weekend, but there wasn’t any hurry. Tony had every intention of taking the scenic route.

There were fewer people than usual hanging around outside Midtown when he pulled up. Peter had mentioned that they staggered exam times, so not everyone finished at once. Tony spotted Peter right away, sitting on the steps with Ned and MJ. Peter didn’t notice him.

If he had, Tony wondered later, would he have leaned over and kissed Ned when he did?

Tony froze, wondering if he’d really seen what he thought he’d seen. The kiss had been... not a first kiss. It wasn’t awkward or joking. Peter had done it almost unthinkingly. The way you kissed someone you’d kissed before, at least a dozen times. 

No one around them seemed to care. For a second, Tony tried to imagine what would’ve happened if he’d kissed another guy on the steps of his high school—not that he’d been there for very long—or in public at MIT. It wouldn’t have gone well for him. And if Howard had ever caught him doing it, it would have gone worse.

No one blinked. Well, MJ was laughing at them, but Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her not laughing at them. But no one else seemed to care. 

It amazed Tony sometimes just how much the world had changed. Not just aliens and superheroes, but _this_. 

He was still trying to figure out what to do—the tinted windows gave him some cover at least—when Peter looked up and saw him. He waved and said goodbye to the others. He hugged both of them, but now that Tony was looking for it, he noticed that Peter hugged Ned for a beat or two longer, and maybe just a little bit harder, than he hugged MJ.

Tony wondered how long that had been true. How had he missed it? Why had he been so certain that Peter had a crush on MJ? Had he really just _assumed_ the kid was straight when he should have fucking known better?

Peter slid into the front seat, smiling brightly. “Hi, Mr. Stark! You didn’t have to pick me up yourself.”

It wasn’t hard to smile back. “You were an excuse to take the Aston Martin out,” he said, and peeled away from the curb. Or tried to, anyway. Midtown traffic being what it was, he immediately screeched to a halt at a red light. The car behind them lay on its horn for no apparent reason. “How’d it go? You had chemistry today, right? Cakewalk.”

Peter shrugged, a little sheepish. “I feel okay about it.”

“Translation: You set the curve.”

“Everyone in my school is really smart. I’m not special.”

Tony threw him a look. “Sure, kid,” he said, letting his tone convey just how much he disagreed with that. Peter’s ears turned red but Tony also caught him smiling to himself.

Tony put the top down once they were out of the city, breezing along the Palisades with the Hudson flashing through the trees off to the right. Peter grinned at him and settled back with his face turned up to the sun. 

It was hard to talk with the top down, so Tony didn’t really try. It wasn’t like there was anything urgent about the conversation; he wasn’t sure he should have it at all, but saying nothing felt dishonest. And good communication was key to parenting a teenager, May had told him more than once. It wasn’t exactly one of his strengths, but he was trying. 

There was a diner halfway between the city and the compound where they’d stopped probably a half dozen times. Peter was hungry—Peter was _always_ hungry—so Tony pulled off the highway. It was a little early for dinner still, so the lot was mostly empty. Tony slung his arm around Peter’s shoulders as they headed inside. 

The waitress they’d had the last couple of times was working. She wasn’t terribly impressed by Tony, but she had a soft spot for Peter, and so far she hadn’t sold photos of them to the press, so Tony liked her. She seated them away from the handful of other customers and left them with their menus. 

“So what are you going to do with your newfound freedom?” Tony asked, once he’d confirmed for himself that he did indeed want his usual cheeseburger, side salad, and Diet Coke. 

“Sleep,” Peter said emphatically as he flipped through the menu. He’d likely end up getting one meal to eat here and one that they’d have packed up for him to eat in the car. 

“I’m resigned to not seeing you before noon tomorrow.”

“At least noon. Promise me you won’t, I don’t know, send in a drone to dump water on me or have FRIDAY wake me up with bagpipe music.”

Tony held his hands up innocently. “I would never.” Peter shot him a disbelieving look, and Tony shrugged. “Well, I won’t this time. You earned it.”

Their waitress came back and took their order. Peter ordered pancakes, eggs, and bacon, as he did about half the time, and after a pointed look from Tony, a chicken club wrap to go. And a chocolate peanut butter milkshake. 

“So what about the rest of the summer?” Tony asked, once they’d gotten their drinks. “May and I were talking about you coming up to the compound for a couple weeks in July, and I know you’ve got your extracurriculars, but you must have other plans.”

“Sure,” Peter said with a shrug. “I mean, mostly just hanging out with Ned and MJ. They’re both going away for part of the summer, though, so I was hoping I could come up then, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, we can work that out.” Tony busied himself with his straw wrapper for a few seconds. “So... you and Ned and MJ...”

“Oh yeah, I mean, we’ll probably go to the Natural History Museum at least once? Ned and me, that's kind of our thing, and they’ve got a deal with Midtown where we get in pretty cheap. And I think we’ll go to the Rockaways on the new ferry.”

“The three of you?”

“Yeah?” Peter said, blinking. “Unless one of us can’t make it.” He squinted at Tony. “You’re being kind of weird. What’s going on? I thought you liked my friends.”

“I do. I mean, Ned talks too much and MJ terrifies me, but I’m used to that.”

“Okay, so...”

“So what?”

“Why are you being weird?”

Tony sighed. So much for subtle hinting, the kid had pegged him in under three minutes. “Are you dating Ned? It’s fine if you are!” he added hastily. “I just—I was under the impression that you and MJ were—”

To his surprise, Peter actually _smiled_. “That’s what this is about?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Tony replied. “I, uh, I saw the two of you on the steps when I picked you up.” He felt his ears turn red. “It looked like it’s been going on for a while.”

Peter shrugged. “Not that long. Just since spring formal. We went together, all three of us, but MJ had been bugging Ned to say something to me for weeks, I guess, and, well, he finally did.”

“Oh,” Tony said. He took in how quietly happy Peter was, smiling to himself. “That’s... that’s great, Pete. I mean it. Does your aunt know?”

Peter suddenly looked a little shifty. “Not exactly.”

Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Why not? You don’t—you’re not worried about how she’d react, are you?”

“What? No!” Peter frowned at him. “That’s not it at all.”

“And that’s not...” Tony hesitated. “That’s not why you didn’t tell me, is it?”

Peter’s frown softened immediately. “No, God, no, Mr. Stark. Of course not. I knew you’d both be cool with it. Ned’s worried about his dad, but I never thought—that’s not why I didn’t tell you.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I wanted to, just...” Peter’s face was suddenly very red. “I know that if I tell May, the rules will change.”

“Rules?”

“Yeah, you know—the rules... about when my bedroom door has to be open...”

Tony stared at him, not sure whether to laugh or slide under the table in embarrassment. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. And I thought if I told you, you’d feel like you had to tell her, so I... I didn’t tell you, either. It’s not that I didn’t want to. I did! But, um. Do you have to tell her now?”

Tony didn’t have time to answer before the food arrived. He gave Peter a minute or two to inhale his first pancake and gave himself some breathing room to think about how to handle this. It was a little... tricky. 

“I won’t tell her,” he finally said. “No one has the right to out anyone else. _But_ ,” he added, when Peter looked up, eyes wide, “I don’t think you should wait much longer to tell her. Take it from me, time doesn’t help with this sort of thing. If she finds out that you’ve been dating Ned for months and didn’t tell her so you could keep making out with him with the door shut, she will be pissed. And probably a little hurt.”

Peter winced. “Yeah. You’re right. I know you’re right. I’ll tell her when I get back to the city next week.”

“Thanks, kiddo.” He took a bite of his cheeseburger and chewed, swallowed, sipped his soda. “And your classmates?” he asked. “None of them are giving you a hard time?”

Peter shrugged. “Flash tried, but MJ shut him down fast. Everyone else’s been pretty cool about it. We’re the first people in my class to come out, but there’s a trans kid in the class behind mine, and last year’s valedictorian came out in her speech. Plus a couple of the teachers are out, so... it’s not that big a deal. I know people still get bullied for it,” he added, like he thought Tony might start lecturing him, “but so far everyone’s been pretty nice.”

“That’s great, kid. And if anyone does give you problems...”

“We’ll tell someone,” Peter promised. Tony couldn’t help giving him a skeptical look, but Peter shook his head and insisted, “Really. It’s important that other people feel safe to come out, too. We’ll tell someone if there’s an issue, I promise.”

Tony relaxed. “You’re a good kid, Pete.” The kid blushed and ducked his head. 

Tony dropped the subject after that, to Peter’s visible relief. They finished their meal and got back on the road. Peter tore into his chicken wrap like he hadn’t just eaten a breakfast fit for two people, and then, because he’d been burning the candle at both ends according to May, he fell asleep for the last forty-five minutes or so. 

This meant that by the time they arrived at the compound, Peter was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to “science the heck out of something.”

(He said “heck” every time, even though Tony had told him repeatedly that he wouldn’t wash his mouth out with soap for using the word “hell.” It just about killed him. _This kid_.)

Pepper was in South Korea, Rhodey was in DC, and Viz was off on a rendezvous with Wanda he thought Tony didn’t know about, so there was no one to waylay them. They headed straight into the workshop and spent several hours just fucking around—with Tony’s suit, with Peter’s suit, with a couple of SI projects that Tony was sort of stuck on. 

It was after eleven when Peter’s growling stomach forced them to surface. They headed up to the kitchen, and Tony started making a mountain of grilled cheese sandwiches, while Peter dumped stuff into a blender for smoothies. 

“So,” Tony said, once the smoothies were made and he was flipping the last sandwich onto a plate. He set the platter on the kitchen island and slid it across to Peter, who took one. 

“So?” Peter repeated, and took a giant bite of his sandwich. 

“So... about what we were talking about earlier,” Tony said, as casually as possible. “At the diner.”

Peter lowered his sandwich to the plate. “You mean me and Ned?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know that you were into guys.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Tony blinked. He didn’t think the kid had ever rolled his eyes at him before. “I’m into _Ned_.” 

“So you identify as bisexual?” Tony tried. 

“Gender is a construct,” Peter told him. “And it’s a spectrum, not a binary. And, I mean, I dunno. I like Ned. I’ve liked girls before, too. I’m not going to stress out about labels.”

“Labels can be useful, you know,” Tony pointed out. “They give you language to talk about things, even if it’s not perfect.”

“I guess,” Peter said. “They also _limit_ the way you can talk about things, too.” 

Tony bit his tongue, aware that anything he said was going to sound, well, _old_. The entire conversation was making him feel a little old, if he was honest. Peter had been through so much shit and was so mature for his age that it was easy for Tony to sometimes forget just how young he was. 

For Peter, marriage equality had always been on the table, if not always legal. Peter hadn’t lived through the early, terrifying days of the AIDS crisis. Peter almost certainly didn’t understand how the latter had given rise to the former. Peter didn’t remember a time when Pride was more protest than party. 

And that was okay, Tony thought. This had been the goal all along, right? For a kid to be able to kiss another kid on the steps of their school and have people be okay with it. For it to just be... normal. For Peter to not even really have to come out to him, not the way Tony’d had to come out to his parents or to Rhodey. 

Peter was watching him over the rim of his smoothie cup. Tony wondered what was showing on his face. 

“So, Mr. Stark,” Peter said after a beat of silence. “What label would you use for yourself?”

Tony managed to keep a straight–– _ha_ ––face, or so he hoped. “Um. Probably bisexual. Though it’s been a long time since I dated a man.” 

Peter didn’t look surprised, exactly. Tony guessed he hadn’t been super subtle in this conversation. “That’s cool. Not––not Colonel Rhodes––?”

Tony barked out a laugh. “No, kid. Definitely not. We’re not all lucky enough to fall in love with our best friends.”

Peter turned red. “I’m not––we’re not––it’s kind of early to––”

Tony took pity on him. “Calm down, Pete. It’s fine.”

“I know, I just...” Peter picked at the crust of his sandwich. “Sometimes I look at him and my stomach feels weird, like this... swooping sensation? Like I have all these feelings and they don’t all fit inside me? And I think... maybe that is falling in love. Is that what it’s like?”

“Sometimes,” Tony said, smiling at him. “I’m glad this makes you so happy, kid.”

Peter smiled back at him shyly. “I’m glad you know. I was tired of not talking to you about it. And I’ll be glad to tell May, too. Even if she does make us keep the door open from now on,” he added with a deep sigh. 

Tony laughed. “Speaking of which, do we need to have any kind of talk about safety? Or just... mechanics? I have no idea what they teach you in these schools.”

“No, we don’t,” Peter said firmly. “Midtown has okay sex ed, and May is a nurse, so she was very clinical about it. For everything else, there’s the internet.”

Tony grimaced. “Oh God, sex ed from the internet. I shudder to think what that’s like.”

“Hey, it’s better than _not_ having it. I don’t know how you guys figured out anything.”

“Trial and error, mostly. Same way literally everyone for all of human history figured it out.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It... had its moments,” Tony said, not sure whether to smile or wince. “But okay, fine.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I won’t make you show me that you can put a condom on a banana. I won’t give you a lecture about safe, sane, and consensual. I _will_ tell you that lube is your friend, and you should always use more of it than you think you need.”

“Oh my _God_.”

“But,” Tony continued stubbornly, “I don’t want you to think that I’m not saying any of that because you can’t talk to me, all right? Because you can.”

“Thanks,” Peter said, even though his face was flaming red and he looked vaguely traumatized at the mere suggestion. Tony couldn’t blame him; he felt a little traumatized himself. But he’d never been able to go to Howard or Maria about anything like this, and he didn’t want Peter to feel the same way. 

Peter buried himself in his phone then, and Tony decided not to call him out on it, figuring they both could use a break. He nibbled around the edges of his sandwich and drank some smoothie, while Peter inhaled three sandwiches, basically without stopping.

Tony never knew whether to be jealous of the kid’s metabolism or glad that he didn’t have to eat that much. Mostly he just tried to make sure there was always enough food lying around. And Tony didn’t think Peter knew it, but he’d started subsidizing the Parkers’ grocery bill, which had approximately tripled since Peter had been bitten. 

Peter was noisily slurping up the last of his smoothie when he finally looked up from his phone. “Hey, can I have Ned up to the compound this summer?”

Tony eyed him, mind ticking over their previous conversation. “Depends. Is this a blatant way of getting around whatever rules May is going to set once you tell her?”

“Um... no?”

Tony groaned. “You have to be more convincing than that, kid. I need plausible deniability!”

Peter sighed. “It’s just so stupid. You and May are both, like, super progressive on everything else. Why do we have to sneak around?”

Tony had to admit, it did seem kind of ridiculous, and it made him feel like a bit of a hypocrite. By the time he was Peter’s age, he’d been at MIT for a year, with all the freedom that entailed––to his detriment at times. But Peter was also miles more responsible than Tony had ever been. 

“You know what?” Tony finally said. “I’m deferring the rest of this conversation to a higher power, i.e. your aunt. Ask her. But her rules are my rules, you know that. You can’t get around her rules by coming to me.”

“Spoilsport,” Peter sulked. 

He didn’t sulk for very long. By the time the sandwiches were gone, he’d perked up. They loaded the dishwasher together and decided to watch an episode of _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ before bed. They flopped onto the sofa, and Peter tucked himself under Tony’s arm. 

“Hey,” Peter said, as the episode started. 

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for being cool with it. I was pretty sure you would be, but I dunno. I guess I wasn’t a hundred percent sure until you actually were.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, glancing over at him. Peter was studiously watching the TV. “I get that. Coming out always feels like a risk, even if you’re pretty sure you know how the person is going to react. Practice helps, but that feeling never really goes away.”

Howard hadn’t reacted well. Maria had merely sighed, and they’d never spoken of it again. Rhodey had hugged him and said, “I’ve got your back. Thanks for trusting me.”

“I’ve got your back,” Tony said aloud. “Thanks for trusting me.”

Peter flashed him a smile and rested his head on Tony’s shoulder. “Same here, Mr. Stark.”

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Love is love is love, and you are loved just the way you are.
> 
> (Also love? Comments!)


End file.
